Here’s a great site for all of you who enjoy optical illusions. Lots and lots of links are provided.
Yes, here is a place that can be enjoyed by Believers and Atheists alike. Gays and homophobes, set aside your differences and enjoy these impressive illusions! Republicans, Democrats and even Green Party members can come together to enjoy the hundreds of optical illusions that are featured by this site.
My favorites: These scary/funny “fish”, these sideswalk chalk drawings, this quaint table top of impossible objects and these disappearing effects.
Here's another similar page I just happened upon. Worth a visit just to see an extremely lifelike Escher-like rendition (second item). The top item evokes what is known as the stroop effect. Here's the site: http://www.tallrite.com/LightRelief/illusions.htm
Here's another stroop effect site that will time you to demonstrate a dramatic difference in the time it takes to read a color word versus the time it takes to state the color of letters that spell a different color. http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/ready….
Here's yet another terrific site. Fantastic illusions. Beware, that it might leave you feeling dizzy to attempt more than a few. http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/
Here are the top ten finalists for the Optical Illusion of the Year contest for 2007. There are some incredible illustions here. My favorite is the rotating/bouncing brains. http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/index….
Designers and architects often take optical illusions into account when creating their designs. The radiator grills on old Rolls Royce cars, for example, are actually not composed of parallel bars; rather, the bars are slightly curved to make them appear parallel. Likewise, the staircases and columns on ancient Greek buildings have slight curvatures built into them to make them appear to be parallel. Architects call it "entasis," and have been aware of it for millenia. (See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entasis/.)
Here is another collection of 20 classic optical illusions. I find that #18 (Adelson’s Checker Shadow Illusion) is the most impressive. http://listverse.com/miscellaneous/20-amazing-opt…
Here's a nice optical illusion presentation on YouTube
Here's a cool video about optical illusions. http://www.itshotlinks.com/movies16/illusions.htm…
If you liked that one, you'll love this one:
http://www.itshotlinks.com/movies17/thruglass.htm…
Walk through glass, great trick!
Unlikely explanation:
http://www.mallusionist.com/magicians/criss-angel…
Likely explanation:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/519421/criss_angel_…
Here's another good source for a variety of types of optical illusions:
80 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena
Here is a terrific optical illusion that I'm adding to this collection. It's called the curve ball. http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/2009/t…
Here's another good optical illusion. A female face becomes a male face after merely adding a bit of contrast. Most impressive. http://ineedfile.com/optical_illusion_twins.html
I loved the faces, Erich – but I think they worked the explanation wrong because it states that the face on the right has MORE contrast and is recognized as male, and I believe it actually has LESS contrast.
Yes? Or am I delusional? ;->
Mindy: Doggonit, but I don't think you're delusional. The one on the left does have more contrast. The light colors are lighter and the dark colors are darker (relative to the light colors). That's what contrast does, right? So I agree with you . . . The illusion is nonetheless powerful.
Here's one I hadn't seen before. Very mental. Once you see the circles, you can hold them for a while, but they vanish.
<img src="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2009/09/hiddencirclesillusion.jpg" alt="hidden circles">
Dan: Wonderful optical illusion. I saw 16 circles pop right in. Stunning.
Four more first rate optical illusions. http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/cushione.html
Movement "silences" many other physical characteristics, including changes in color, size and shape. http://visionlab.harvard.edu/silencing/